


Favor

by rai_m



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Break Up, Fake/Pretend Relationship, M/M, brief and shameless fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-25
Updated: 2018-02-25
Packaged: 2019-03-24 02:07:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13801116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rai_m/pseuds/rai_m
Summary: “It’s one night, Rafael. Just a few hours, and I’m not asking you to play boyfriend of the year. We just have to sit together and be civil, and as soon as the wedding is over we can go our separate ways.”





	Favor

**Author's Note:**

> So this was originally written for a Valentine's prompt, and two weeks later, here we are.

Sonny’s hand rested heavily on his thigh and Rafael itched to shake the weight off, but he’d made a promise and ego and stubbornness prevented him from breaking it. So he let Sonny’s hand sit there and tried to zone out as he weaved stories for strangers about a future Rafael knew they no longer had.

The break up had been relatively amicable, in spite of the weeks of fighting and tension leading up to it. They both knew the importance of the job and would never do anything to get in the way of that. So they played nice, maintained a professional air, and tried to cross over as little as possible. Things were fine. He could handle the dull ache in his chest when he saw Sonny, he could live with the deliberate space between them, and there was something to be said for the peace of a silent apartment, on the nights he didn’t happen to fall asleep while working late at the office. It wasn’t good, not yet, but it was fine, so he told himself.

Then Sonny had dropped by his office.

_“Gina asked me to give you this.” He held out a small book with a brightly colored bookmark sticking out of the middle._

_“What is it?”_

_“It’s the poem she wants you to read at the wedding.”_

_Rafael frowned as he took the book out of Sonny’s hand. “She still wants me to do that? I thought—"_

_“I haven’t told her.” Sonny looked intently at a spot on the floor. “It’s her wedding, you know? I didn’t want to make things about me.”_

_“Sonny…”_

_“I spent three hours at her apartment last weekend talking her down after a she went on a pre-wedding lunch with our mom. I really, really don’t want to throw anything more on her plate right now.”_

_“I understand that, but you do realize it’ll be worse when she sees that we’re not together at her actual wedding?”_

_Sonny rubbed nervously at the back of his neck. “That’s the thing.”_

_“No.” Rafael could read him well enough to know what he was getting at, and was surprised that his immediate reaction wasn’t anger, but panic. “Sonny, no.”_

_“It’s one night, Rafael. Just a few hours, and I’m not asking you to play boyfriend of the year. We just have to sit together and be civil, and as soon as the wedding is over we can go our separate ways.” He stepped closer and cut off Rafael’s protest. “I don’t want her to spend her wedding day worrying about me. Please.”_

_He should have said no, that there were better ways avoiding the issue with Gina, that faking a relationship was a ridiculous idea, but Sonny made it all sound so easy that Rafael didn’t want to be the one to admit spending a few minutes a day working with him was difficult enough, let alone a whole night surrounded by friends and family who only knew them as a happy couple. If it wasn't a problem for Sonny, it shouldn't be a problem for him._

_“Fine,” he said, clearing his throat to get rid of the hoarseness. “I can do that.”_

Sonny picked him up the morning of the ceremony, dressed in a gray suit and blue tie that Rafael had bought him, one that brought out the color of his eyes. Rafael didn’t tell him he looked good, and they made the long drive to the hotel in near silence. He spent the ceremony sitting so close that he could feel Sonny breathing, could see the slight incline of his head every time he tried to look at him without being noticed. He gave his reading and smiled at Gina, and was relieved when the whole thing ended and he could buy himself a drink.

Unfortunately he still had to get through the dinner and speeches, sat at a table with Sonny and three other couples who were evidently so bored with their own relationships that they were obsessed with dragging every detail of Rafael and Sonny’s relationship out of them.

“How did you meet?”

“Is it hard to work together?”

“How long have you been together?”

“Any plans to get married?”

At the last question Sonny’s hand tightened around his thigh, and Rafael thought back to an evening months ago, sitting on the couch in his apartment, when Sonny had picked him up on a joke about looking after him in his old age, and how his heartbeat had quickened when he realized how much he wanted that. Sonny choked out an answer he didn’t hear, and he pushed himself off his chair with a mutter about getting another drink. He stumbled towards the bar and fell hard onto a stool, scrubbing a hand down his face and trying to breathe away the pain, the frustration, and the regret.

“You’re not fading already, are you?”

He turned to find Gina looking at him with amusement, pulling at the straps of her dress with a flush in her cheeks.

“Your family is hard to keep up with.” He was able to summon a weak smile for Gina. He liked her the best of Sonny’s sisters. Sonny adored Bella, but Gina was more Rafael’s type- sharp tongued and funny with a determined streak he admired. They'd gotten along like a house on fire since they first met. “Are you having a good night?”

“Amazing,” she said dreamily. “You?”

“It was a lovely ceremony,” he replied, skirting her question.

Gina barked a laugh. “Please, make sure you tell my mother that. She’s still mad I wasted a church wedding on Dave Rossi.”

“He’s the one who kept the ferrets?”

“I swear to God, Rafael, don’t start me.” she muttered, dropping on to the stool next to him in a casual way that probably wasn’t great for the dress. “Adam is a much better catch. He doesn’t even own a cat.”

Rafael shook his head with a fond grin. His heart clenched at the realization that this would probably be the last time he’d get to talk to Gina. He didn’t see her dropping by her brother’s ex-boyfriend’s apartment for a chat. “I’m glad you’re happy, Gina.”

She smiled, warm and bright and so much like Sonny. “Me too.” She looked around the crowd of people, searching out her new husband, her smile growing even larger when she found him. “It’s funny, I thought I was happy before. When I was married, all those times I got engaged.” She grimaced. “Well, maybe not every time.”

Rafael snorted. He’d heard enough stories about Gina’s multiple engagements to know that was true.

“But this time, it’s different. I’ve never loved anyone like this before.”

He'd normally roll his eyes at the sentiment, but he thought of Yelina, of Alex, of the few he’d loved before Sonny. “I get it.”

Her smile turned knowing. “I bet.”

The barman set a glass down in front of him, and he focused on taking a sip of his drink, but Gina was a Carisi, and didn’t let the silence rest for long.

“You know we almost broke up once?”

He choked a little on the scotch. Sonny had never mentioned that. “What? When?”

“Right after we moved in together.”

“Why?”

She waved a hand. “Oh, a stupid argument on top of 300 other stupid arguments. Too much time in each other’s space, both afraid that we’d made a mistake.”

Afraid of hurting each other more than you already had, ashamed that you’d failed in front of everyone, fear of turning into someone you'd promised never to become… He was familiar with the experience. His hands closed tighter around the glass, and a weak part of him won out enough to ask the question.

“So what happened? How did you fix it?”

“He bought me flowers and we went for dinner and we talked. It was a new experience for me. I thought couples just shouted at each other until they got tired.” She laughed, because he supposed that was funny when you came from a family where no one raised a hand to each other. “Anyway, we realized we loved each other too much not to be together.”

The scoff came out without thinking, and he tried to hide it with a cough. “It was that simple?”

“No, not simple. It was a lot of work. It still is, for both of us. But I want to work at it.” She looked down at her wedding dress. “I love him.”

Rafael simply nodded, not trusting himself to say something that wasn’t sarcastic, or more self aware than he'd like.

She leaned forward and placed a hand on his shoulder. “I think we’re similar, you know. We like to cut and run when things get difficult. God knows I’ve ruined enough opportunities that way. But sometimes you find something that’s worth sticking around for. And when you do, you should fight for it.”

His eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Why are you telling me this?”

“It’s my wedding day. I guess I’m feeling sentimental.” She squeezed his shoulder gently. “You're a good person, Rafael. You deserve to be happy too." She stood with a hop and patted his shoulder where her hand lay. "Thanks for coming today. Whatever happens, it really means a lot."

She left to continue making her rounds. Rafael watched her walk off, frowning as he thought back over their conversation. He shook his head and chuckled into his drink. She’d known the whole time. Of course she had. Sonny had never kept a secret from his sisters with much success. She'd probably been discussing the two of them with Bella and Theresa the whole month before the wedding.

He glanced back at their table. Sonny was still chatting with their intrusive tablemates, but his eyes were fixed on Rafael. Sonny smiled softly at him across the crowd, hesitant, but warm, and it was that, and Gina, and maybe the alcohol, and Rafael felt something in his chest crack open, all the hope and desire he'd suppressed out of fear and self preservation suddenly flooding to the surface. He closed his eyes and took a breath, leaving his glass on the bar and walking back to the table.

“So how did you know he was the one?”

Couple three were still running through their list of questions, it seemed. A flush rose on Sonny’s neck when he saw Rafael arrive just as the question was asked, and he opened his mouth to say something.

“He fell asleep in my office,” Rafael said, before he could answer.

The woman of couple three laughed with surprise. “What?”

He shrugged and looked at Sonny, who was watching him with curiosity. “I was working on a case, a bad one I had about 2% chance of winning. The witnesses were… anyway. I was working late, driving myself to distraction, and Sonny turns up at my office with Chinese food and a box of legal books. He didn’t even say anything, just sat down at the table and started working. I think it was the first time he didn’t try to explain the entire concept of law to me.” Sonny threw him a look, but the table was rapt. “Anyway, we worked for a few hours, and when I was done I look up and he’s half lying on my couch, dead to the world. I should have kicked him out, would have done if it had been anyone else. But I just watched him sleep.”

“Why?” One of the other women whispered the question.

He looked at Sonny. “I didn’t want to do anything else.”

“Did you win the case?”

“No.”

“He got a deal,” Sonny said softly. “It was the best we could do, but we went out to drown our sorrows anyway. I thought that was when…”

Rafael reached a hand across to Sonny. “Dance with me?”

Sonny nodded silently, and Rafael pulled him up and across to the dance floor, putting his arms round him and pulling him closer.

“You never told me any of that,” Sonny whispered as they swayed together.

“I’ve never been very good at talking about things like that.” He could still feel the heat in his face from the uncharacteristic confession made in front of six strangers. “I’m not that great at talking about a lot of things.”

Sonny ducked his head with a sad smile.

“But I want to work on it. With you.” He pulled back, reaching a hand up to turn Sonny’s face toward him. “I don’t want to fake this, Sonny."

Sonny sank into his touch. “Me neither.” His hand found Rafael’s and he tangled their fingers together. “Come home with me tonight.”

“We’re in Staten Island,” Rafael murmured, meeting his eyes with a smirk. “Are you asking me to come back to your parent’s house?”

“Bella’s door has a lock on it,” Sonny replied, and Rafael couldn’t remember that last time Sonny had joked with him. 

Sonny tightened his grip on his hand, just slightly, when Rafael didn't respond. “We could always sit back down. Sharon and Robert still have to tell me about the outfits they’re going to dress their chihuahuas in for their wedding.”

Rafael turned immediately towards the door. “A lock, you say?” He pulled Sonny behind him, their hands still intertwined, grinning at the sound of his laughter. They had a lot to work on, but he was ready.


End file.
